Clinton rips into Trump over taxes: 'It seems he was contributing nothing'

2009 was not a strong year. It was just one year after the 2008 Great financial crisis. You know that crisis? In which the governments of lots of the world decided to bail out their banks....

True to a lawyers method Clinton is methodically attacking the foundation of Trump's support. The politician in her knows that you just have to pound away saying the same thing over and over and the people will start to believe it. Especially when you can control the media and the narrative. Dare I say it, even forums on the Internet. Back in the day they controlled what went into that printing press, then the radio, then your TV, whatever was most effective. Nowadays it is the Internet.

Essentially they are saying "do not pay attention to the person behind the curtain. Pay attention to whom we point a finger at". Increasingly are hopes are not about voting for an ideal you can get behind, it's about voting against the one you want least. For me I know what deep depths of evil Mrs Piggy brings to the table. It will be an absolute loss all the way around from her with syrupy words brought to you by the ministry of truth. At least with Trump I feel there is a chance. I'll go for a chance over a known loss any day.

Is this wisdom? No. It's just what we have for now. The hope of a light at the end of the tunnel.

Only differences between Hillary and Trump regarding taxes is Hillary wants to tax everyone more, while Trump wants to tax everyone less. Plus, part of Hillary's job as a politician was to prevent people from avoiding our tax system. One of Trumps primary jobs was to pay as little tax as possible as a businessman. Sounds to me like only one of them have been doing their jobs and it sure wasn't Hillary.

a reply to: FaunaOrFlora

I have absolutely no problem with anyone who can find legal loopholes to keep their money out of Uncle Sugar's greedy hands. A HUGE amount of our tax dollars are wasted or given to other countries, while we have the homeless and hungry roaming our streets.
If they would take the money from One Year that they give to other countries, we would have no homeless problem. We could have better healthcare for our Vets and some of the kids I've seen with no coat in the Winter, would have programs to help them go to school in something other than handmedown rags. And maybe, just MAYBE, our own infrastructure wouldn't be falling apart.
35 billion may not be much compared to all our problems, but it'd be a goddamn start. I am sick of seeing American tax dollars go to help everyone but Americans.

U.S. spent $35 billion on foreign economic aid last year.

originally posted by: eXia7
The whole point in life is to try and pay as little tax as you can. Just because the government is so bloated and filled with waste, doesn't mean I work hard JUST so I can pay taxes.

No it's not. If that were the point, then the real point in life is to not work. If you have no income, you have nothing to tax and you could even get money back.

Isn't your definition of life saying that the real point is to live on welfare?

originally posted by: DAVID64
Wait a minute....Trump did exactly what every American does, tries like Hell to find a way to pay as little tax as possible....and people want to bitch? Did YOU file a tax return this year? Did you itemize and take every deduction you were allowed? Or did you just give it all to Uncle Sam?
If you didn't, you're a hypocrite for thinking Trump did anything wrong.

Well, if you're calling people hypocrites then I pass the bar because I never take deductions, and I always pay an extra 10%. The country would be in a much better spot if we all did the same.

However, what you're getting at is that Trump lived the dream of using the tax laws to pay nothing. Sometimes that dream is better off left as a dream, kind of like what would happen if the average American became ruler of the world. It's a fun dream but it would probably be disastrous in reality. The real problem isn't that what he did is illegal either (though it may have been, we'll have to wait and see). It's that our system is set up on taxing the wealthy, due to income inequality no one else has a large enough share of income to contribute meaningfully to the tax base. When the wealthy dodge their taxes, it multiplies and requires the middle class to pay a much larger share in order to make up the lost income.

Let me explain with some simple numbers. In this sample scenario there's a GDP of $1000 spread among 1000 people, and the percentages roughly correlate to how our current tax base breaks down.
Person #1 makes $350
#2-#5 make $250 ($62.50 each)
#6-#20 make $300 ($20.00 each)
#21-#50 make $99 ($3.30 each)
#51-#100 make $1 ($0.01 each)

When #1 dodges paying his 20%, that's $70 that have to be made up elsewhere in the system.
51 and below simply don't have the assets to tax, 6-20 are upper middle class and where the tax burden then falls. When they have to make up that $70 missing from the system, each ends up paying $2.33 in additional tax, that's an extra 11.67% out of their paychecks.

THAT is the problem with Trump dodging his taxes. It may be legal, but in doing so he is stealing money directly from the people we're most trying to support. The honest hard working people who have seen success.

So no, I'm not a hypocrite, and I fully understand why Trump and people like him not paying taxes is a big deal. When someone in the bottom 70% saves 20% on their taxes it's still only saving 20% out of 10% of the total tax burden, or in other words it's only a 2% reduction (and you're kidding yourself if you don't think they account for that when setting the tax rates... taxes are designed to bring in $x revenue after deductions). When people like Trump don't pay it's taking away from a much larger share of the pool.

originally posted by: seeker1963
Yep, and not for nothing, how many people making this a huge deal don't pay anything in taxes themselves? I have to laugh at Hillary making a deal out of it when it is the government who created all of these loopholes for their wealthy donors. Our tax laws are ridiculous! Talk for years of a flat tax, which would be fair for everyone, yet as usual, all we get from our elected officials is useless lip service without anything ever being done. More of the same ole same ole......

There's a reason a flat tax will never happen. People like deductions. It makes them feel special and like they're pulling one over on the government to take a deduction and keep some of their money. It's a completely irrational response, because the government is going to tax until it gets what it needs anyways, but if you tell someone they're paying $5000 they're going to be less accepting of the system than if you tell them they're paying $7500, but they can do x, y, and z to keep $2500 of that.

At the end of the day people like their standard deductions, their marriage deductions, their child tax credits, their itemization for business expenses, and so on.

originally posted by: DAVID64
35 billion may not be much compared to all our problems, but it'd be a goddamn start. I am sick of seeing American tax dollars go to help everyone but Americans.

Foreign Aid is a net gain. Not only do we get back all the money we spend, but we get extra concessions on top of that. Ask yourself, what do nations do with that money? The answer is they give us military bases, they give us internal policy, and most importantly they buy American products.

Look at food aid for example, do you think that's freely given? It's not. Food aid is a subsidy to the agriculture industry, we give them money, they give us food. We then turn around and give that food to another nation, either for humanitarian reasons, or because we can barter it for things they have that we want. In the end we get something from the country we give aid to, and we create domestic jobs out of it. If we spend that money internally we would get the job without any extra benefit attached.